Roches Moutonnées in Scotland

Provided and copyright by: Donald Brett
Summary authors & editors: Donald Brett, Jim Foster, Stu Witmer

The photo above shows a postglacial landscape in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, near Dulnain Bridge, Strathspey. The exposed rock features are known as roches moutonnées ("fleecy rock"). Roche moutonnées have been shaped by the passage of ice and are characterized by having a smooth up-ice (upstream) side but a rough surface on the down-ice side. These curious humpback forms, sometimes called Sheepback, are generally parallel to the flow of the ice and occur both in granite and in the surrounding metamorphic, country rocks (rock common to a region) of the Cairngorms. Photo taken on August 2, 2007.